Youth Indicator Data
Background
Get the Data
Using the Indicators
How can you use the Youth Indicators and demographic data to improve the prospects for youth in your region?
The following present some practical ways data can be used to help make decisions about services and programs for youth. We focus here on a series of
"exhibits"-examples of how data on youth and youth programs can be put to use for various purposes. Numerous good examples could have been selected, but those
presented here are illustrative and intended to provide food for thought as well as some useful tools and models that may be modified and improved as your own circumstances require.
1. Getting the Lay of the Land: Doing a Needs Assessment
2. Using a Needs Assessment to Allocate Resources
3. Planing for the Future
4. Making the Case for New or Expanded Resources
5. Ongoing Monitoring and Evaluation of Program Effectiveness
6. Tips for examining youth indicator data
7. Finding successful youth workers
1. Getting the Lay of the Land: Doing a Needs Assessment
(Click here to download Exhibit A)
The first and, perhaps, most obvious use for data about youth is to provide practitioners, analysts and decision makers with a better understanding of the
characteristics of the youth population in their area-its size, its composition, its distribution within the city, town or region, and other basic characteristics. This information, together
with an overview of the extent and distribution of services within the area, can form the basis for a needs assessment, which can then be used to guide future planning, resource
allocation, advocacy, fundraising, and other activities to support the creation of an effective system of services for young people.
A "needs assessment," as the term is used in this context, is a document that answers the following question: "To what extent do current
programs and services in our area match the needs of our area's young people?" The answer to this question has two dimensions-one qualitative and the other quantitative-and it is
to the quantitative dimension that we will first turn our attention. There will be a bit to say about the qualitative dimension in the final pages of this section.
Exhibit A provides a good template for doing a needs assessment. It is an excerpt from Helping All Youth Succeed,
a "how-to-do-it" manual that was published in 2001 "for use by local youth leaders, WIA Youth Councils, service provider networks, and others interested in
improving education, school-to-work and related youth development services in their communities." The final section of that publication, presented here as Exhibit A,
consists of a series of worksheets to guide a group of people through a strategic planning process. It should be noted that some of the programs and funding sources listed in the
worksheets are no longer in existence (e.g., funding from the School-to-Work Opportunities Act), while others (e.g., the BEST Older Youth program) have come into existence more
recently. The worksheets, therefore, should be used as templates; they should be modified to fit current realities. It is also important to note that it is not necessary to complete all
of the worksheets below in order to produce a useful needs assessment. A good basic needs assessment can be produced by working through the material found in Worksheets 1,
6, and 9; a more nuanced, more informed one can be developed by adding Worksheets 7 and 8. All of these worksheets are described below.
Exhibit A also contains a number of other planning tools to help communities build partnerships, design a more coherent system for youth, and create an
action plan for building such a system. The latter set of resources, for instance, will allow you and your partners to set specific goals or targets for the short-term, mid-term, and l
ong-term. A specific and measurable way to think about these goals or targets is to view them as impact statements that capture the change you hope your P21 effort will bring about.
Tying these statements to realistic target dates and specific indicators can be expected to work well and drive your local program and policy interventions and advocacy efforts, as
illustrated below with a hypothetical set of goals:
Sample Goals Based on Initial Indicators |
|
Baseline |
Short-Term
2005 |
Mid-Term
2010 |
Long-term
2015 |
Indicator - % of 16-21 year olds who were not enrolled in school and did not possess a high school
diploma or a GED |
11.4% |
11.4% |
8.5% |
5% or Less |
Data Source(s) |
US Census 2000 |
To be set by Local P21 Team |
US Census 2010 |
Locally created data |
2. Using a Needs Assessment to Allocate Resources
(Click here to download Exhibit B)
While the worksheets in Exhibit A provide templates for performing a needs assessment and identifying service gaps, Exhibit B is an actual example of a needs assessment
that could potentially guide decision-makers in allocating resources toward specific areas of need. The needs assessment was done by Duncan Chaplin of the Urban Institute, a private research firm,
for the mayor of Washington D.C. After measuring the distribution of need for various youth-related services in different police districts in the city, the author compares the extent of that need with
the availability of services in those areas. Note especially the analysis on page 5, indicating that "those [districts] with the greatest problems per youth . . . are generally those with the fewest
hours of direct service activities to youth, suggesting that these are the districts most in need of additional youth activities." The analysis also notes that in one of the districts (District 1)
"the data suggest that there is not a lack of providers, but rather that the providers are not adequately engaging the youth who live there to participate;" and further discussion of the
data on page 7 leads to the observation that certain programs may be lacking in sufficient staff to provide needed services.
3. Planning for the Future
(Click here to download Exhibit C)
As suggested by the analysis in Exhibit B, the data can be extremely useful in informing decisions about how to allocate resources. This kind of analysis can also be
brought to bear in designing an overall plan for youth programming over one or more years. Exhibit C is a good example of how this can be done. Taken from Hampden County 's Annual Workforce
Development Business Plan for FY2005, the exhibit presents that county's "top three priorities and strategies for managing the WIA Title I Youth Program."
The first priority-"to expand internship and work experience opportunities for at-risk youth"-"was selected based on an analysis of the employment status of Hampden
County young people" conducted by the Center for Labor Market Studies (CLMS) at Northeastern University. The plan cites data from the CLMS study as the basis for an "increased emphasis on
educational attainment and work experience for out-of-school youth." As a result, "additional resources will be targeted to basic skills development, and out-of-school youth service providers
will allocate at least 25% of their budget toward paid work experience."
The second priority-"to provide competency-based work readiness activities that adequately prepare youth to meet the demands of local employers"-was, likewise,
grounded in the data gathered by CLMS, as well as in feedback from focus group discussions with area employers. Once the problem was clearly delineated in this way, a work group was created
to research work readiness programs, and one of those programs-the Springfield School to Career Partnership's Work Readiness Certificate Program-was selected as a model to be followed by
youth-serving agencies and organizations around Hampden County.
4. Making the Case for New or Expanded Resources
(Click here to download Exhibits D and E)
In an environment of intense competition for resources, clear and compelling data are an essential ingredient in making the case for new or expanded resources.
Such data are the foundation upon which effective advocacy rests. Exhibit D-a flyer sent out to local employers by the Regional Employment Board of Hampden County-is an example of one such
use of data. The flyer solicits the participation of employers in the Hampden County Summer Youth Employment Program, and it uses data-some of the same data, collected by CLMS, that was
described in the preceding paragraphs-to persuade employers of the importance of this program. Similar uses of data might inform press releases, PowerPoint presentations, and oral presentations
to policy makers, legislators, funders, and potential volunteers.
Another common way of using data to make one's case is in the problem (or "needs") statement required by funders in grant proposals. Exhibit E is an example of such a
problem statement. It is taken from a proposal prepared in September 2004 by Commonwealth Corporation and the Boston Private Industry Council. Note the bolding of a number of key points,
each of which is supported by data presented in tables. The key points and the supporting data combine to make a strong case for the need the proposal has been written to address.
5. Ongoing Monitoring and Evaluation of Program Effectiveness
A final use of data lies in the realms of monitoring, assessment and evaluation. It arises from the need to determine whether, and to what extent, different programs
and services are "making a difference" for the populations they are intended to serve. In this respect, the need for reliable quantitative data is clear; but it is important to emphasize as well that
good qualitative data can be equally useful, especially when it comes to making judgments about how programs can be improved to better meet the needs of youth. To use some terms from the
field of evaluation, both summative evaluation (directed toward measuring program outcomes) and formative evaluation (directed toward understanding in greater depth what happens in a program)
are required for a complete picture. In actual practice, says Carol H. Weiss, a long-time student of evaluation methods and applications, "evaluation is most often called on to help with decisions
about improving programs, projects, and components . Decision-makers may start out with global questions (Is the program worth continuing?), but they often receive qualified results
(‘There are these good effects, but . . .’) that lead them to look for ways to modify present practice. They become interested in the likelihood of improved results with different components,
a different mix of services, different client groups, different staffing patterns, different organizational structure, different procedures and mechanics. At many stages people turn to evaluation
for information that will help them modify the program. They expect evaluation to point the way to constructive change." [Carol H. Weiss, Evaluation: Methods for Studying Programs and Policies,
Second Edition, pp. 31-32. Upper Saddle River, NJ, Prentice Hall, 1998.]
6. Tips for examining youth indicator data
(Click here to download Exhibit F)
In preparing for a review of the youth indicators, there are several ways that can allow you to simultaneously maximize your understanding and use of the indicator
data and minimize the time you need to spend reviewing the data. Exhibit F lists some of these ways.
7. Finding successful youth workers
(Click here to download Exhibit G)
Exhibit G presents the knowledge, skills, and abilities youth workers need to be successful in their work with youth. The intent of this exhibit is two-fold: (1) to validate
the depth of expertise youth workers possess and (2) to assist local P21 planning efforts and guide hiring. This exhibit was drawn from a May 2004 paper published by the National Collaborative
on Workforce and Disability for Youth and prepared by Mary McCain, Patricia Gill, Joan Wills, and Mindy Larson. For a copy of the full paper - which describes the development process and also
identifies what youth need to be successful - and additional resources, please consult NCWD/Youth at 1-877-871-0744 (toll free)
or Collaborative@iel.org or visit their website at www.ncwd-youth.info
Good data are critical for a wide range of uses, from informed monitoring of program results, to evaluation, to needs assessment, to planning and resource allocation,
to fundraising and advocacy, to making programs better so they can achieve better outcomes for more young people. Given these many and varied uses of data, it makes some sense to cast the
net wide so as to gather in a wide variety (both quantitative and qualitative) of potentially useful information.
